Internal combustion engines operate in a variety of environments. No matter what the environment, however, these engines require considerable cooling to remove excess heat generated during operation. Accordingly, most such engines include a cooling package, such as a radiator and a fan, to circulate at least air to cool the engine. Such engines typically use the fan and radiator in combination with a cooling pump that circulates a cooling solution, such as water or a water/antifreeze solution, to internal channels within the engine for cooling. The engines may be mounted in mobile machines, such as highway trucks, off-highway trucks, excavators, tractors, motor graders, wheel loaders, scrapers and the like, operating in environments that include airborne dust and debris.
Because of these challenging situations, in addition to normal maintenance, access is required to the compartment housing the engines and the cooling package. In order to provide convenient access, some compartments now include not merely a single hood, but an articulating hood that allows a user to conveniently and quickly access only a needed portion of the hood without mechanical assistance. Such hoods are described in co-owned U.S. Pat. No. 7,992,665, entitled, “Hood Assembly For a Machine and a Method of Use Thereof.” In many cases it may be desirable to provide a seal between the hood compartments.
There are, of course, many ways to seal hoods for an engine compartment. One way is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,866,426, issued to Hideya Umemoto et al. In this disclosure, elastic seals are mounted to the sides and top of a radiator. When the hood is closed, the top and side seals press between the top of the hood and the sides of the hood to prevent air flow and heat from diffusing from the engine to the radiator. However, the seals are elastic, and being attached directly to the engine, may likely degrade over time and provide less sealing than desired. In addition, the top seals and the side seals do not seal in a continuous plane or continuous sealing surface. Thus, while there will be some sealing of the engine area from the radiator area, it is highly likely that this design will include leaks from the outset, with performance becoming worse as the elastic seals degrade over time.
The present disclosure is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above and/or other problems of the prior art.